


persistence of the flesh

by reywrite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Unreliable Narrator, it was a lot, my attempt at portraying will's emotional incoherency post getting stabbed, ur author is STILL processing this episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reywrite/pseuds/reywrite
Summary: There was a wound on Will’s stomach, still purple with the violence of healing, its shape thin and stretching upwards like spidersilk embracing its prey. The arc of the knife into his skin had been clinical, surgical, practiced, and fond.Will, and his scars.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	persistence of the flesh

Will Graham would not believe his body was built from blood and bones and sinew, if it weren’t for the overwhelming evidence. 

He could remember the heat of the sun on his back and the prick of a fishing hook against his flesh and the pull of a good joke at the corners of his mouth, sure, but those were just memories. Easily fabricated, easily erased, by his own or an outside influence. Meaningless _._

But his collection of scars, the pale ragged marks that detailed his body, were physical evidence, his to interpret. Without them, he’d think he was little more than a mind hanging in an empty case, simple synapses and empathy. 

There was a gash down his left leg, towards his ankle, long and angry despite its faded color. He’d gotten it in Louisiana waters, tripping over the hard metal contours of a half-built lobster boat. His father had wrapped it with gauze and sent him back to work. 

There was a tear just behind his right ear, a white bullseye over mastoid bone. This one was from a fishing hook, stuck into his skin. He had been younger, still on the learning curve, without the control and precision he now laid claim to.

The fingers of his left hand bore the starburst burn pattern of a roman candle misfired, from an alcohol-fueled teenage rebellion in an empty parking lot. It had been beautiful, once it had escaped his grasp, just as much as it was painful. 

There were pencil-thin lines on his thighs, another relic of his teenage years. He had thought those wounds were beautiful too, at the time. He still did, although he had moved to less direct ways of creating them. 

A series of punctures on his left forearm, along with a few other less significant wounds on his arms and legs and back, had been torn by canine teeth. The price of loving strays, at times, was laceration. 

On the lower right side of his ribcage, curling around like a crude grin, was a knife’s signature. The scared and desperate move of predator turned prey, it had been enough to convince him to leave the field at the time. But these things never stuck, only scarred. 

Just by his hairline, nearly impossible to find unless you were looking for it, was an uneven gash made by the sharp edges of a shattered bottle. Will’s understanding of people’s buttons meant he could easily push them, could quickly find just which words would provoke a drunken hand. He’d started trouble for himself in more than one bar, for no reason other than the thrill of it. 

Through his left shoulder, not yet old enough to be faded by time, was the mark of a bullet. Made by the hand of good old Uncle Jack, a man driven by results and unperturbed by consequence, it was Will’s reminder to be sparing with his trust. 

As the map of his body proved, Will was not an especially careful person. He was drawn to danger, be it stray dogs or fresh crime scenes or bloodthirsty psychiatrists. It was his custom to avoid looking at his markings whenever possible—always easier to bury than to let his instincts be known, even to himself. 

The exception to this rule, the one scar he found his hand passing again and again, buzzed with constant electricity just beneath the fabric of his shirt. Of course, Hannibal was the exception. 

There was a wound on Will’s stomach, still purple with the violence of healing, its shape thin and stretching upwards like spidersilk embracing its prey. The arc of the knife into his skin had been clinical, surgical, practiced, and fond. 

Will could still feel himself shaking apart against the strong arms that held him, could still feel vicious tremors wracking the whole of his body, with emotions raging inward to match. He hadn’t been taken by anger, or fear, or anything that would be reasonable for someone who had just been gutted by a trusted hand. Rather, a bright unnamable feeling had bubbled up in his chest, pressing at the surface as Hannibal’s hand tightened over his hip, gently possessive. He’d buried his face in the available shoulder, with gore rising to scent the air and falling to stain the tile, and clung to everything he was.

Said everything had murmured nonsense into his ear, strange accent melting the edges of a voice rough with injury and some excuse for emotion. Will thought, if he pushed his memory hard enough, he could make out the barriers between the bloodstains on Hannibal’s once-pristine shirt, and separate them into the bodies they had once belonged to.

He had been branded, mind and body, by Dr. Lecter. There could be no separating them now, so tied were they by the red entrails of fate.

In sharp contrast, the way he had held _her_ had been careless. The movement of the knife had contained every ounce of its previous clinical skill and not a drop of affection, sliding with an easy flick that made sure of a spray, made _sure_ Will would feel her death splatter hot against his face. There was no apology in it, only an angry sort of satisfaction, almost petulant. The point had been made. 

Will’s blood and Abigail’s had mingled on the expensive tile, his dark and slow-seeping, hers spraying out in waves, bubbling the bright cherry shade of the too-young.

The stag’s antlers had grown as it died, curled and writhed and became, wrapped around would-be father and manipulated daughter until a sort of ribcage was formed, protecting the bleeding lungs within. It was the closest they’d ever gotten to properly bonding. 

The recovery time hadn’t passed so much as it had woven itself through him, seconds and hours and days turning within him to replace the viscera any fully-functioning human should contain. 

He was not angry. He was not mournful, was barely grieving. What he was, against any reason he could reconstruct, was wanting. 

He wanted Hannibal to undo every suture, tear apart the scabbing flesh and reach upwards, pull his beating heart out and eat it warm from his chest. He wanted Hannibal to decorate his corpse with the shards of the teacup, then reassemble the glass with the glue of his drying blood. He wanted Hannibal to tear his body limb from limb and create a worthy showpiece from the remains. 

It wasn’t all that unrealistic of a fantasy, considering. 

Barring that, Will spent many days with his eyes closed, letting his hospital bed dissolve and become replaced with pouring rain, a gourmet kitchen, and the heady thickness of fresh blood. He went over Hannibal’s _design_ , again and again, enough times to allow it to gouge a scar in his mind just as deep as the one in his flesh. 

_I dig my knife into your skin and revel in the scent of your blood, rose red and alive—my own fantasies indulged._

_I dig a less physical knife into your mind as I cut her open and revel in the salt and copper of your tears, your wide-mouthed broken expression, as the young means to an end hits the ground._

_This was not my design, but your lies have made it so._

He could have stopped this, and in another world, he did. 

Will Graham was covered in scars, and the ones beneath the surface brought far more to light than any split of skin ever had. The remnants of his past have been hung on his present, Alana’s misery and Jack’s determination and Hannibal’s inevitability weaving the noose, and his own behaviorism tightening it. 

He breathed in the Italian air, let its taste curl around his tongue, old and rich and strangely sharp. Ghosts tangled in his head, then merged into his reality, and Will began his hunt. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of two Hannibal fics I'm writing, the other being a much longer post S3 thing, but for now, enjoy this!
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://littlelovegod.tumblr.com), if you're interested.


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